Celebrating God’s Tenderness: Feast of the Most Sacred heart

The Catholic Church celebrates the Feast of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus on June 27. The feast day is essentially a celebration of God’s Tenderness, His Mercy, His Love for each one of us, and for our world. The Heart in almost every human tradition is considered the symbol and the habitat for Love, for Tenderness, and for Mercy.

The Prophet Ezekiel shares how the Lord unveils His tender heart when he says, “I myself will look after and tend my sheep. The lost I will seek out, the strayed I will bring back, the injured I will bind up, the sick I will heal.”

Through this reading, we look inside the tender heart of God, who personally and deeply cares about each one of us and is willing to do anything it takes to care for each one of us. He does not want to delegate but wants to personally take care of us. His is a Love that is gentle, that seeks, that cares, and that is merciful.

His is a love that heals, that reconciles, that mends, which fills our emptiness. It is a powerful painting of God’s heart that many people need to hear about, especially those who only have an image of God as a stern judge who cares less and has no empathy.

Heart of Mercy

Through the incarnation, the act of God coming down to take on human form, the Lord demonstrated how far He was willing to go to show us the extent of His love.

God has offered us different avenues through which we can experience his tenderness. Besides personal prayer, the Sacrament of Reconciliation is meant to help us encounter God’s mercy and forgiveness. The Sacrament of the Eucharist is meant to be an encounter with God’s sacrificial love and our union with Him.

Healing a Wounded World

In our world, where many wounded, rejected, broken, and sad hearts cry out for love and understanding, we can ask ourselves: How better can I love today, just the way the Lord loved?

One of the most difficult things to deal with, humanly speaking, is when one’s love is not returned, when it is rejected. You see it in circumstances when children reject their parents’ love, when spouses or fiancées reject each other’s love, when relatives reject each other — that is one of the heaviest burdens a person can carry. Our sinful actions in all ways are a rejection of God’s love for each one of us. They make God’s heart bleed! When we do acts of reparation, we are trying to mend a broken heart!

May we ask the Lord to draw us into His Most Sacred Heart. May He also teach us to love tenderly, just as He does.